Analyzing SAP CPQ for Quote Process Support in BRIM Context

Mark is a sales engineer with the O2C Cloud Company. His background is in Tech Sales, which enables him for the sales engineer role with the O2C Company. Let´s see which steps Mark needs to create a quote with configurable products for a customer.

1. Creates Quotes.
2. Sends quotes to customer.
3. Changes Quotes (give discount) and change the amount.
4. Change configuration according to customer needs, more volume, less, and another technical id.
5. Creates customer confirmation letters.

The Quote-to-cash (Q2C) process comprises activities that aim to convert sales opportunities into paying, long-lasting return customers.

The SAP CPQ–SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management integration covers the essential part of the Q2C process.

In our example, Mark from O2C configures a quote in SAP CPQ and negotiates legal terms with the customer until a final agreement is achieved and the customer has accepted the offer. After the customer accepts the quote, it’s transformed into a solution quotation in SAP S/4HANA. The confirmed solution quotation triggers order fulfillments, separated into physical, subscription, and service contracts.

Julia is a procurement specialist who works for CutAbove. She has 15 years’ experience under her belt in this role. However, this is the first time she has been responsible for purchasing cloud storage. Julia and Mark work together to ensure Julia purchases the correct cloud subscription service level and features for CutAbove. Let’s have a look at the service levels that Mark has offered Julia.

As you can see from the previous graphic, the O2C Company offers different cloud infrastructures to Julia from CutAbove. The product Cloud Selection Service is a subscription and is paid monthly.

The monthly fee depends on the selected service level agreement:

• Pay-as-you-Go
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum

The product has a minimum duration for the subscription of 24 months.

You may be wondering, "what does CPQ mean?". Well, SAP CPQ stands for Configure Price Quote.

Your next question is probably, "what does it do?". SAP CPQ is a B2B or B2C e-commerce platform that allows a company to sell complex products, solutions, and services to business and consumers.

SAP CPQ is a highly configurable system capable of tailoring application features that best fit the specific needs and expectations of businesses. For O2C Company, the goal is to implement an SAP CPQ solution that allows the company to:

• Efficiently manage product data and pricing.
• Standardize the product catalog and product list.
• Simplify selling of highly configurable and customizable products.
• Create consistent and professional-looking proposals.
• Automate quote approvals.
• Eliminate quote and order errors.
• Increase up-selling and cross-selling.

Now that O2C Company has CPQ up and running, they're eager to try it out. Here's their first chance. CutAbove would like to have an offer for more storage space. O2C Company can't wait to see how quickly, easily, and accurately they can generate a professional PDF quote to present to their client.

Through the following video, you discover how Q2C is a cyclic process.

SAP CPQ can be integrated with SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) to provide a workflow for users to automatically create an SAP S/4HANA Solution Quotation whenever an SAP CPQ quote is sent to SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management. The follow-up documents are created inside SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management automatically. This integration only works with the Quote 2.0 engine in SAP CPQ.

The integration is triggered when the user finishes the quote process and sends the final quote to the back-end by choosing the Place Order button. This action would then create a Solution Quotation and its follow-up documents (for example Subscription Contract) in the BRIM system.

SAP CPQ and SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management are synchronized in terms of master data, business partners, and products (SAP S/4HANA) via SAP Cloud Integration. SAP Variant Configuration and Pricing is used as the default mechanism for configuring and Pricing subscription (SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management) products in SAP CPQ.

If the quote item is configurable, the quote data from SAP CPQ and the configuration data from SAP Variant Configuration and Pricing are combined and sent to SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management. Otherwise, only the standard product information and Pricing details are transferred to SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management.

Products that have not been replicated from SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management, but created directly in SAP CPQ, are ignored in the integration, which creates SAP S/4HANA Solution Quote from SAP CPQ Quote.

Let’s have a look at a business example that we are using throughout the course.

CutAbove are a video cutting company based in New York. They work with high-value companies to ensure timely and accurate video production and editing. Seeing as they produce hundreds of videos per day, they have run out of space on their local devices and the limited cloud storage they have.

CutAbove require more storage in the Cloud, which is provided by the O2C Company.

The O2C Company is based in Los Angeles and provides extra cloud storage to customers who need it. They use SAP CPQ and BRIM to manage subscriptions with customers. CPQ allows O2C to create quotes for its customers, negotiate the legal terms and reach a final agreement with the customer. After the customer accepts the quote, the integration with BRIM allows the generation of the follow-up documents and regular invoicing to the customer.

CutAbove are interested in purchasing a cloud selection service at O2C Company that allows them to store more videos.

Mark at O2C Company negotiates with CutAbove on the configuration of the high-tech service and the price conditions.

The quote process is an interactive communication between both parties.